Thursday, April 26, 2012

When they tried drumming up attention for a May Day general strike during Wednesday’s A’s game at O.co Coliseum, a group from Occupy Oakland found out baseball and politics don’t always go hand in hand.

The trio climbed up in the second deck of the stadium and unfurled a banner reading “Occupy Oakland: Strike out Capitalism. No work. No School,” during the A’s home game against the Chicago White Sox. They were told to remove the banner.

Then the group started handing out leaflets advertising the May 1 General Strike plan, which includes shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Got kicked out of and A’s game for passing out #BayM1GS flyers. Did a banner drop, too. Since when was a stadium private, not public, property?” a person tweeted at 2:16 p.m. using the name Leon Ghesu.

Ghesu said they were given the choice to leave or relinquish all 1,000 of their fliers.

“Four security guards escorted us out. The fliers cost more than the $2 ticket,” wrote Ghesu on Thursday. “Too bad we left right when the game got good.”

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You know, I can't figure out what the Occupy movement even wants. I mean, it's some sort of showing dissatisfaction with rich people but do they actually have any demands? Obviously I haven't been paying close attention, but they're really not doing a good job if I don't even know what the point is.

While I tend to agree with the sentiment -- in fact, the entire Oakland Alameda Complex is publicly owned... Sure, it was a "private" event and obviously not a public square, but the fact is that it was public dollars that built the stadium, the city/county/whatever that 'owns' it, etc.

You know, I can't figure out what the Occupy movement even wants. I mean, it's some sort of showing dissatisfaction with rich people but do they actually have any demands? Obviously I haven't been paying close attention, but they're really not doing a good job if I don't even know what the point is.

It started out with a certain amount of promise and a lot of enthusiasm, but when winter set in it was like watching the Los Angeles Rams against the Minnesota Vikings in a late December playoff game at Metropolitan Stadium. They made it a point NOT to present any demands, and that didn't necessarily turn out to be the world's smartest move.

While I tend to agree with the sentiment -- in fact, the entire Oakland Alameda Complex is publicly owned...Sure, it was a "private" event and obviously not a public square, but the fact is that it was public dollars that built the stadium, the city/county/whatever that 'owns' it, etc.

There's nothing ironic, just stupid. Government ownership has never meant all citizens have unfettered access.

You know, I can't figure out what the Occupy movement even wants. I mean, it's some sort of showing dissatisfaction with rich people but do they actually have any demands? Obviously I haven't been paying close attention, but they're really not doing a good job if I don't even know what the point is.

What were the demands of the Arab Spring? What do the Syrian protesters want? What did the people in Tianenmen Square want? What did the people who tore down the Berlin Wall want and what were their demands to get there?

No widespread protest movement has concrete demands. The unifying thread is a disgust with the current system and the desire for something new. The Occupy movement wants a more "fair" society, a more "livable" and "equitable" society. At best, as with almost any such movement, you can get broad agreement on the desired ends but of course you'll get little agreement on the means to that end and, hence, no demands, simply attempts to slow down/clog up the system as is.

Those who aren't disgusted with the current system won't understand the Occupy protests. Those who believe the solution to social problems is through the established political system won't understand the Occupy tactics. But the best means of understanding or relating to the Occupy movement is to look at something like the Arab Spring (which was much lauded in the US). That wasn't a unified political movement with a set of policy proposals, it was a diverse group of people from across society often with competing political/social philosophies who (in one of those weird socio-political gestalt moments) came together to express their disgust and refused to back down until what disgusted them most was gone. And when you look at the coverage of the Arab Spring in the US, almost nobody was asking what their demands/proposals were -- few were even asking "what happens if they succeed?" quetsions before they did succeed. Yet that was practically the first thing you read in the media in response to the Occupy movement.

In that sense, the Occupy movement is to be lauded. They have not yet sold out for a couple of empty promises from the Democrats -- as far as I know, all the Democratic and even "progressive" attempts to co-opt the movement have failed.

The Occupy movement is almost certainly doomed to failure in the US for all sorts of reasons (the momentum is gone almost everywhere outside of Oakland near as I can tell so it may be dead already) but the phenomenon isn't any different from the Arab Spring. (Which is not to equate the social situations in Egypt and the US.)

What brings down political power systems (not individual governments necessarily) almost always has been and almost always will be that enough of the people simply refuse to go along with it anymore, not because some inspiring revolutionary leader comes along to unite the masses with their brillian vision (even in cases like Lenin, Mao, Castro, Hitler, the American Revolution, Gandhi, etc). How violent that struggle becomes depends largely on how violently the system clings to its power (cf Syria and Egypt and -- maybe the hardest to explain of them all -- South Africa). What the hell happens after that "revolution" is the hard bit. :-)

You know, I can't figure out what the Occupy movement even wants. I mean, it's some sort of showing dissatisfaction with rich people but do they actually have any demands? Obviously I haven't been paying close attention, but they're really not doing a good job if I don't even know what the point is.

From what I understand, the Occupy movement is intentionally decentralized. So the lack of a clear, outlined set of goals/wants/desires is deliberate. I'm not sure if I agree with that strategy, but I think that's what they're going for.

Are they doing a good job? I don't know. I think they're doing a good job of, at the very least, pointing out some of the economic inequalities within the US. They've certainly been able to spread the "99%/1%" meme, but I'm not sure if this will have much effect on the general populace's voting habits.

I will say that the plan for a May 1 General Strike is silly because they don't have the support of the larger American labor unions (again, perhaps this was deliberate but I don't agree with it).

That whatever dictator that was current in the country with the protest should get the #### out. And a lot more.

What do the Syrian protesters want?

That Assad should get the #### out. And a lot more. And stop killing us.

What did the people in Tianenmen Square want?

Democratization of Chinese society starting with the right of free expression. And a lot more.

What did the people who tore down the Berlin Wall want and what were their demands to get there?

The communist party should get the #### out.

Every single of these protests had a clear, unmistakable demand. Then of course there are parts of them that pushes other issues (jobs, food prices, free expression). But Mubarak's problem wasn't that the protests were lacking in specific demands, they all wanted his head on a plate and weren't shy about it.

What did the people who tore down the Berlin Wall want and what were their demands to get there?

The communist party should get the #### out.

Or Gorbachev's reforms should get the #### in.

The most popular chant at the October protests leading up to the fall of the Wall was "Wir sind das Volk." Loosely translated into 2011 buzz-speak, that's "We are the 99%." Nobody had any clue in October 1989 that Germany would be re-united only a year later, and some of the leading dissidents were upset that the DDR was giving up on its socialist experiment so people could buy fancy cat foods. The demonstrations may well have been more focused than Occupy Wall Street, but what they got really wasn't what they planned on getting, for better and for worse.

That would be a start, but all the protests in Eastern Europe was very adamant that the communists had to go.

The most popular chant at the October protests leading up to the fall of the Wall was "Wir sind das Volk." Loosely translated into 2011 buzz-speak, that's "We are the 99%.

It meant something very different in 1989, though. It was turning the leadership's faux-proletarian rhetoric against them. The communists did claim to represent the will of the common people.

and some of the leading dissidents were upset that the DDR was giving up on its socialist experiment so people could buy fancy cat foods.

So they were, and they had to accept that that wasn't anything East German people in general weren't interested in. And don't conflate what the bulk of the protesters thought and the idea of some dissidents.

and some of the leading dissidents were upset that the DDR was giving up on its socialist experiment so people could buy fancy cat foods.

"Leading dissidents" often end up holding extreme positions, because extremists are the first to jump to the protest lines. Moderate leaders, by the very fact that they're moderate, generally don't instigate social unrest (though they certainly glom on to and temper a movement that's gaining momentum).

That's exactly my point. The Occupy protests have an equally clear demand -- plutocratic capitalism must go. That has obvious implications around jobs, income inequality, democratisation of a corrupt political system, etc. It's not at all difficult to understand what their point is whether you share it or not.

That nobody has a clue how to accomplish that goal other than "we're mad as hell" and nobody is presenting a clear idea of what would happen should they succeed is par for the course for any such movement.

You can of course make the perfectly legit and obvious point that things are a lot better in the US than Mubarak Egypt or Soviet Russia or China but that's simply disagreeing with the Occupy movement's beliefs (and pointing out why it's likely to fail), not a point showing how it is a different type of movement.

There are certainly many, many socio-political aspects of the US that are worth mass protests, but the Occupy folks don't seem to have a clue what they are. If they do, they've decided not to tell any potential converts, so either way they have failed.

“Got kicked out of and A’s game for passing out #BayM1GS flyers. Did a banner drop, too. Since when was a stadium private, not public, property?” a person tweeted at 2:16 p.m. using the name Leon Ghesu.

At least they knew where they were going and got there. Occupy Atlanta tried to protest the upscale mall here for whatever reason and they got lost getting there and tried to go to a different mall by going through a hotel lobby and were turned away by security, and one of the protesters said they didn't realize that the mall was private property. Can't make this stuff up.

What's wrong with Science Diet? Makes for glossy coat, well formed cat poops. Or are you talking about wet food?

I should be more specific.

I feed the cat two types of food: dry (with a bit of water), and wet, from a can. Both were Science Diet - I'm still on kitten food as the Bombay I found outside under a bush in the rain was about 5 weeks old in October. The cat seemed pretty meh on the Science Diet wet minced food but loved the chunks in gravy-type meal. Well, for a reason I haven't researched more fully, the wet kind she liked seemed to discontinue, so as far as wet we tried some other stuff and she ended up really liking the Fancy Feast. (Even that, though, like the minced Science Diet, the regular paste consistency or whatever she doesn't seem to care for, and I don't particuarly blame her - seems pretty blech.) I am still getting the Science Diet dry food, which the cat likes perfectly well.

ANYHOW, I am basically curious about the Tiki Food brand because I pet-sat for a friend in an 8-room 5th-Avenue apartmnet and that food seemed a combination so amazingly bourgeois, decadent, and healthy that I'm considering adding it in on occasion.

There are certainly many, many socio-political aspects of the US that are worth mass protests, but the Occupy folks don't seem to have a clue what they are. If they do, they've decided not to tell any potential converts, so either way they have failed.

Not common, but I agree with Rants here.

“Got kicked out of and A’s game for passing out #BayM1GS flyers. Did a banner drop, too. Since when was a stadium private, not public, property?” a person tweeted at 2:16 p.m. using the name Leon Ghesu.

I have a cat that will only eat Purina Cat Chow, and it has to have been in his dish for less than a few hours. He won't eat tuna or chicken or any other brand of cat food. I realize Cat Chow isn't the best choice for long term health, but he'd made his choice. He also supplements his diet with birds, mice, voles and the occasional (small) snake.

I feed the cat two types of food: dry (with a bit of water), and wet, from a can. Both were Science Diet - I'm still on kitten food as the Bombay I found outside under a bush in the rain was about 5 weeks old in October. The cat seemed pretty meh on the Science Diet wet minced food but loved the chunks in gravy-type meal. Well, for a reason I haven't researched more fully, the wet kind she liked seemed to discontinue, so as far as wet we tried some other stuff and she ended up really liking the Fancy Feast. (Even that, though, like the minced Science Diet, the regular paste consistency or whatever she doesn't seem to care for, and I don't particuarly blame her - seems pretty blech.) I am still getting the Science Diet dry food, which the cat likes perfectly well.

Ah, OK. My persian almost exclusively eats Science Diet dry, and has very little interest in wet food. My wife's alley cat also eats Science Diet dry, but will make a pig of himself out of pretty much any wet food you care to throw at him. Since I'm not particularly interested in prolonging the vicious brute's life, and there's a decent chance my persian just wouldn't like it much, I'll probably just stick with the status quo and not bother with any super duper premium cat foods.

You know, I can't figure out what the Occupy movement even wants. I mean, it's some sort of showing dissatisfaction with rich people but do they actually have any demands? Obviously I haven't been paying close attention, but they're really not doing a good job if I don't even know what the point is.

I have almost no hope for our future considering for one simple reason: The kids who grew up thinking T-Ball games are always a tie and everyone gets ice cream will be in charge soon.

Isn't it possible that those kids will make the world a better place? I understand the impulse to say, "it's not like that in the real world," but in a generation or two those children will be defining what the real world is.

I mean, maybe they'll get their asses handed to them by China and India, but maybe they'll gently guide America into a Denmark-like existence, where everybody does indeed get ice cream.

One could easily characterize the "demands" of Occupy in a similarly vague manner while still being fairly accurate:

In what world is calling for the regime to step down vague? "Mubarak out" is clear and to the point. What happens next is up in the air, of course.

Attacking plutocratic capitalism is vague, because everybody outside Goldman Sachs tends to think that they are engaged in honest toil as opposed to that damn Wall Street. It's both a vague target and a vague roadmap.

Is dry food ok? Our cat loooooves it, and is a surprisingly picky eater for someone who was feral not that long ago.

The Dry Food = Evil position is well-populated. It's hard to imagine it is as good or yummy as wet food, really, but our cat also loves it just fine. I think splitting it up is reasonable, as well as adding water to the dry food to make it less dry. Science Diet is a really good dry food, it seems.

Honestly, as long as it isn't three or four enormous cats eating a large portion of what may be a limited budget, I think spoiling one cat with primarily wet food isn't an issue.

I have almost no hope for our future considering for one simple reason: The kids who grew up thinking T-Ball games are always a tie and everyone gets ice cream will be in charge soon.

I personally saw this coming the first time I was told that every player on our Little League team had to play at least one inning in every game. That thoroughly outraged my 11-year old's sense of meritocratic justice, especially since I was hitting .727 at the time and would have spit in Early Wynn's eye.

Problem is, that was in 1955. The trend you decry goes a lot further back than you probably realize.

I personally saw this coming the first time I was told that every player on our Little League team had to play at least one inning in every game. That thoroughly outraged my 11-year old's sense of meritocratic justice, especially since I was hitting .727 at the time and would have spit in Early Wynn's eye.

Problem is, that was in 1955. The trend you decry goes a lot further back than you probably realize.

I put up a slash line of 1.000/1.000/4.000 -- but I played little league in an era where Richard Gere was teaching us that greed is good and that it's not important what you do, it's only important that you get to be the one keeping the books.

We have a stray cat that lives exclusively in our backyard. We think she's a female, and have kind of adopted her. There's a big mean loud tomcat that comes over and beats the #### out of her almost daily. I don't know what to do about it.

We have a stray cat that lives exclusively in our backyard. We think she's a female, and have kind of adopted her. There's a big mean loud tomcat that comes over and beats the #### out of her almost daily. I don't know what to do about it.

We have a stray cat that lives exclusively in our backyard. We think she's a female, and have kind of adopted her. There's a big mean loud tomcat that comes over and beats the #### out of her almost daily. I don't know what to do about it.

Isn't it possible that those kids will make the world a better place? I understand the impulse to say, "it's not like that in the real world," but in a generation or two those children will be defining what the real world is.

No, by that time some kids from China will be defining what the real world is. Hint: it involves the ice cream-tie kids being crushed under their parents' national debt.

Is dry food ok? Our cat loooooves it, and is a surprisingly picky eater for someone who was feral not that long ago.

Dry food is fine. My cat has subsisted almost entirely on dry food her entire life (8+ years) and is in excellent health, and as I said earlier in the thread, actually prefers it to wet food. As they get older, it's probably a good idea to include some wet food in their diet, but the notion that cats must eat wet food to survive is just wrong. Just buy a reasonably high quality food and you should be OK.

We have a stray cat that lives exclusively in our backyard. We think she's a female, and have kind of adopted her. There's a big mean loud tomcat that comes over and beats the #### out of her almost daily. I don't know what to do about it.

I'm not going for the BB gun solution but even big, mean cats understand they should probably stay away from bigger, meaner animals. An accurate water hose or repeatedly well-thrown tennis balls should do the trick. (I mean, if the tom is also a stray, I'd feed it, too, but I understand why people might not want to.)

We adopted two cats from the city shelter about 6 months ago, one was a stray and one wasn't, both about 4 years old. For cats who had been in the shelter for over a month, they are both amazingly sweet animals. They're heavy cats (~16 lbs each) although one big and the other is just fat. Anyway, we feed them the "Light" Science Diet dry food and they seem to like it just fine. One of them has lost a couple of lbs. on the light food, the other one has not.

Also, the Occupy folks were smart not to put demands out there, because when someone did occasionally start making demands, they generally sounded foolish. I'm sympathetic to many of their complaints, but they don't have any clue how to fix things and the proposed solutions I heard would likely have made the situation worse.

At least they knew where they were going and got there. Occupy Atlanta tried to protest the upscale mall here for whatever reason and they got lost getting there and tried to go to a different mall by going through a hotel lobby and were turned away by security, and one of the protesters said they didn't realize that the mall was private property. Can't make this stuff up.

Maybe they were from California, where the courts decided that malls aren't really private. See Pruneyard.)

We have a stray cat that lives exclusively in our backyard. We think she's a female, and have kind of adopted her. There's a big mean loud tomcat that comes over and beats the #### out of her almost daily. I don't know what to do about it.

I don't know about that situation. But if you get a cat stuck in the walls of your house, I know the solution is to send more cats in there.

How could you NOT know that Repoz is AM from "I have No Mouth and I Must Scream"? BBTF is one long, diabolical sick experiment....there is a way out, but I haven't found it yet. I only know it has something to do with Madeline Albright.

We have a stray cat that lives exclusively in our backyard. We think she's a female, and have kind of adopted her. There's a big mean loud tomcat that comes over and beats the #### out of her almost daily. I don't know what to do about it.

If the tom is beating it up, and not ####### it (which sounds worse than a fight), its probably a male. I live in a rural area and am constantly plagued by stray cats. The only one I've had to shoot so far was a 6 month old kitten that had one of its hind legs torn off by a raccoon.

Isn't it possible that those kids will make the world a better place? I understand the impulse to say, "it's not like that in the real world," but in a generation or two those children will be defining what the real world is.

I mean, maybe they'll get their asses handed to them by China and India, but maybe they'll gently guide America into a Denmark-like existence, where everybody does indeed get ice cream.

In the sense that it's possible that pigs might fly out of my butt, yes. Possible.

We are completely isolating concepts like reward and prospering from concepts like working and trying. EVERYONE can't sit on the couch waiting for the bridge card to arrive. Somebody has to put the Twinkie in the package.

I'm sympathetic to many of their complaints, but they don't have any clue how to fix things and the proposed solutions I heard would likely have made the situation worse.

They certainly would have.

The one great success of the Occupy movement (other than to say that they're mad as hell on TV) was to not get swallowed up by larger, institutionalized political forces. Whatever the claims are that the Tea Partiers changed the Republican Party, they'll be endorsing Mitt Romney as the Tea Party candidate this November. All they ended up doing was to give a name to the right wing of the GOP.

I have almost no hope for our future considering for one simple reason: The kids who grew up thinking T-Ball games are always a tie and everyone gets ice cream will be in charge soon.

I guess they're already in charge of baseball, are they not? Who else is Bud Selig but a dessicated plutocrat in commoners garb who rose to power chanting "We are the 99% and demand free stuff in the interest of fairness"?

We are completely isolating concepts like reward and prospering from concepts like working and trying.

Hey, if even our heroic masters of capitalism in their ownership suites deserve to go on the dole in the interest of reducing inequality, how can you begrudge the poor souls who don't even own a single yacht from a similar sense of entitlement?

Danke for the feedback! The internet seems to agree with you guys. I think I'll go pick up some high quality, grain-free, dry food like maybe this one? Our cat loves dry so much, I figure it'd be wrong not to let it have some. Kinda goes over to the Shake Shack thread, but even if it's not good for you, sometimes you *should* let yourself have at it, ya ken?

I'm gathering from my Bay Area friends that Occupy Oakland, through all sorts of stupid ####, is doing their cause more harm than good.

I can vouch for this. Their agenda any more seems to be focused on the two competing priorities of committing serious vandalism and inciting violence against police in order that they can schedule further demonstrations against police 'brutality.'

I think the greater movement has already achieved the top range of their upside - as noted upthread, popularizing the '99%' meme and getting economic inequality into the national discourse were actually pretty major achievements. Be better if that's all they did.

I was just going to post something similar to #96. T-Ball, no scoring. First year of kid pitch, also no scoring. But kid pitch isn't really kid pitch. It's putting the kid on the mound and having him throw 4 balls nowhere near the plate and then the coach comes in and pitches.

By the time the kids are 9 (or maybe 8) they are playing something pretty close to real baseball. No stealing and no advancing on errors. But 3 outs to an inning, 4 balls and the batter goes to first. Hit a ball out of the infield and you can go for 2.

This idea that all of Little League has eliminated keeping score and therefore the kids don't understand winning and losing is a joke.

By the time the kids are 9 (or maybe 8) they are playing something pretty close to real baseball. No stealing and no advancing on errors. But 3 outs to an inning, 4 balls and the batter goes to first. Hit a ball out of the infield and you can go for 2

??

When I was 9 we played full rules, including stealing, sliding and diving being allowed.